


Never Too Late for Christmas

by molegria



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Humor, Kristanna Secret Santa 2018, Meet-Cute, One Shot, fruit cake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 05:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molegria/pseuds/molegria
Summary: She's going to be terribly, horrendously, irredeemably late. And worse, without a fruit cake.(My ridiculously late gift to @kristannafever for the Kristanna Secret Santa 2018)





	Never Too Late for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KristannaFever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KristannaFever/gifts).



> I could try to act cool and say I was saving my Secret Santa gift for January 6 because that's the proper day for gift-giving, according to Christian canon. But no, it's because Tumblr is a shitty website. I never got the message with the name of my Secret Santa (Tumblr ate it up), so I assumed the organizers hadn't got _my_ message registering for the exchange. I swear I felt like the little match girl from the tale, watching through the window while everyone exchanged gifts and had fun. :'D
> 
> To my surprise (and utmost shame), my name _was_ drawn, and so I owe a gift to long-suffering @kristannafever, to whom I can't apologize enough. I hope this little thing is worth the wait!

She's going to be terribly, horrendously, irredeemably late. And worse, without a fruit cake.

 

"Of course I can bring the fruit cake, Elsa," Anna mumbles to herself, swerving from last-minute shoppers as she hurries down the street. "What could possibly go wrong?" She shakes her head. Of course she would mess up even the easiest of tasks. That's why Elsa never asks her for help. She messes up everything.

 

See, all she had to do was buy some fruit cake. She had three whole weeks to buy some fruit cake. If she'd bought one of those supermarket fruit cakes three weeks ago, it would have remained in all its barely-edible glory until today and she wouldn't be out in the snow on Christmas Eve, when even the largest department store is closing its doors.

 

But no, she had to bake the cake herself. So what if Olaf couldn't tell the difference between a homemade cake and a store-bought one? He would stuff it in his cakehole until he popped like a cicada, just like he does every year. No, Anna had to bake the fruit cake. She had to prove to everyone that she could do it. She needed to hear Elsa and their friends say, "You _did_  this? I never knew what a talented baker you are!"

 

Except she isn't a talented baker, never has been. In fact, Anna can't remember the last time she really got something right in the kitchen. Sure, she knows how to cook enough that she won't starve — she can whip out a batch of staples to pack for lunch during the week. Rice, vegetables, beans, chicken. But it's not stellar, you know? Not something she would serve for guests. When she does have guests, they get pizza. But she figured it wouldn't be that hard to follow a cake recipe. It wasn't anything fancy, right? Just cake.

 

Cake, as she found out, was never just. In her defense, it wasn't a _complete_ failure. A complete failure would be burning it so badly that she'd have to throw out the pan with it. It only burned at the bottom. And the middle was under-cooked. And it was lopsided. And since it was so ugly anyway, she had to cut a slice and try it. The dense ball of wheat, candied fruit and almonds is still weighing in her stomach.

 

She steps around a couple coming out of a hardware store with a ladder (seriously, who buys a _ladder_  on Christmas Eve?) and catches a glimpse of Oaken's Bakery on the other side of the main street. Their lights are still on and they haven't pulled down the metal doors. She looks at her watch; it's five past seven. They should have closed five minutes ago. Heart filled with hope, she sprints to cross the street, but a steel-hard arm appears in front of her chest and holds her back.

 

"What are you—" Before Anna can finish shouting at the stranger, a metallic blur zooms by her nose with a gush of wind. She follows the enormous SUV with her eyes before it disappears around a corner at maddening speed.

 

"Whoa," she breathes, stepping back.

 

"I know, right?" Says the owner of the arm, looking down the street after the crazy driver. "Not the best day to die, I'd say."

 

"Definitely not," says Anna, finally taking a good look at him. Her savior is a tall, broad-shouldered guy in his twenties, with a blonde mop of hair and a beard — both of which could use a trim. He's still pretty cute, regardless. "Thank you. I'm in such a hurry that I didn't even look at the lights."

 

"They ran a red, actually," he points at the pedestrian light. The little green man has started blinking red now. "At least your family would get a big compensation if—"

 

"Oh, _no_ ," Anna cuts him off, rushing across the street amidst a flurry of honking cars. By the time she gets to Oaken's Bakery, the sign on their door is already turned to "Closed", and the owner is pulling down the metal doors. "Are you closing?"

 

Oaken looks at the metal door and at the "Closed" sign, then turns to her with a sad smile. _Great, now he thinks I'm an idiot._

 

"Please, I know it's Christmas, I just..."

 

"I'm sorry, miss, but it's already past our closing time," he gently tells her. He might as well have driven her out of there with a broom.

 

The blonde guy is back by her side. She didn't even notice him crossing the street after her. "Girl, are you suicidal? Hey, Oaken."

 

"Hey, Kristoff, merry Christmas."

 

"Do you know him? Please, tell him he needs to open his shop, it's an emergency," Anna begs, grabbing the stranger's jacket.

 

Oaken is shaking his head and grinning at them while he puts the bakery's keys in his pocket. "No one is going to die because of baked goods, _ya_? The important thing tonight is being with your family, which is what I'm going to do now. Happy holidays!" He gets into his car, ignoring Anna's protests, and drives away.

 

Anna slumps down on the storefront steps. "Well, _I'm_  gonna die because of baked goods," she sighs.

 

Hesitantly, her guardian angel (well, he's built more like a bodyguard, really. Her bodyguardian angel) steps closer to her. "You almost did get yourself killed because of baked goods," he chuckles. "What's the problem?"

 

"Hah. Where to start?" She sighs again. "My cousin loves fruit cake. And this year I promised I'd bring the fruit cake. Do you see some fruit cake in my person? You don't, because there's no fruit cake. And now my sister is going to roast me for dinner. There's the problem."

 

He clicks his tongue and tilts his head to the side like he's a lab puppy or something. Damn, he's really cute. "Not to sound like a therapist, but it looks like you have bigger problems than some fruit cake."

 

Anna raises her eyebrows. "If you're going to analyze me, I should at least know your name."

 

"Kristoff," he extends a hand.

 

"Wait, yeah, Oaken said it, sorry. Kristoff! Actually, I wasn't sure if he'd said Kristoff or Kristoff _er_ , and it's not like I could call you 'Kris', right, I mean, I don't even know you. You can't just throw a nickname at someone you just met." He starts lowering his hand, looking confused. She grabs it and shakes it, blushing. "Oh, sorry! I'm—I'm Anna. Sorry, I do that, I'll just start talking and..." She lets go of his hand and smiles at him. "Hi."

 

Kristoff smiles back at her. Damn, he's even cuter when he smiles. "Nice to meet you, Anna."

 

She loses a minute looking at his lips, then comes back to her senses. Dinner at Elsa's. The fruit cake. "So, uh, you don't... happen to know any bakery around here that is still open by now, do you? I've walked down all of Crocus Street with no luck. Everything is closed."

 

He shakes his head. "It's like Oaken said. People want to spend Christmas with their families," he shrugs.

 

"Yeah, I'm not sure I'll want to spend it with mine if I show up empty-handed," Anna mumbles, scraping snow from the pavement with the tip of her boot.

 

He gives her that look — the one you give someone who clearly has issues and you wish you could help them somehow, but you're not very close and you don't want to meddle. Or maybe he just thinks she's a hopeless case. She's about to tell him she doesn't need his pity when he says, "I think I can help you."

 

Her heart fills with hope again. "How? Do you have Oaken's address? Will you help me break into his shop? I swear I'll leave money for the cake, we don't have to commit two crimes at once."

 

"Yeah, no, we're not committing crimes on Christmas Eve," Kristoff laughs. He has a great laugh, too. Ugh. "I know a place. It's on the other side of town, but they have the best fruit cake you'll ever taste."

 

"It's fruit cake, you know. Not exactly the most decadent dessert there is."

 

"Trust me, you'll love it. Do you want their address? It's really easy to find." He rubs the back of his neck. "I'd go with you, but I guess you wouldn't, you know... stranger danger and stuff."

 

"Hey, don't worry, I just _look_ like a psycho." Anna winks at him, kicking herself mentally. _Stop flirting with strangers! What would Elsa say?_

 

In the end, what Elsa would say doesn't matter much, because she takes the subway with this beautiful stranger called Kristoff who saved her life.

 

She tries to control herself at first, she really does. But their destination is almost at the end of the line, and halfway along the ride she's already spilling her whole life on his lap. She tells him about her sister, how they used to be best friends until Elsa had a mental breakdown in her early teens, and how their parents dealt tremendously badly with it, and made some really questionable decisions, something she only realized after years of therapy. She tells him of how they grew apart, and that they'd only started patching things up very recently, after Anna had a bad breakup. (She doesn't go into the breakup.) She tells him about their cousin Olaf, who grew up with them and made them talk to each other again, after years without even seeing each other since their parents' funeral (she tells him they died in a car crash, but leaves it at that; he doesn't ask).

 

"And that's why the fruit cake is so important," Kristoff concludes as they leave the station.

 

Anna rubs her arms, looking around. She doesn't come often to this part of town — it's a working-class neighborhood, mostly residential, with a few mom-and-pop stores here and there. At eight o'clock PM on Christmas Eve, the streets are pretty much deserted. She must be out of her mind to follow a complete stranger this far from home. If he did something horrible to her, how long would it take her family to notice her absence? Elsa would probably think she just didn't care enough about them to show up for Christmas.

 

"You know," she lets out a deep breath, continuing to follow him. "I'm sure Olaf wouldn't hate me forever if I just told him 'sorry, I burned your fruit cake'. The guy adores me, and I love him to bits as well. But they're counting on me to do this, and I can't... are we here?"

 

"Yup," Kristoff nods, searching for something in the pocket of his jacket. Anna looks up: the sign on the front says "Bulda's Cake Shop" in simple, no-nonsense lettering. The lights are off behind the glass doors, and a LED panel on the corner of the shop window says "~CLOSED~" in neon pink.

 

"I guess we got here too late, anyway," she sighs. It bothers her less than she thought it might.

 

Kristoff chuckles. "It's never too late for Christmas," he tells her, pulling a key out of his pocket and opening the door for her.

 

She steps into the shop and looks around at the display fridges as he turns on the lights. "Hang on. Is this place yours?"

 

He laughs. "No, I'm just the delivery guy. But my mom's the owner, and she's the one who bakes all this stuff." He points at the large display counter next to the cash register. There are few items on display, but the cakes and sweet pastries are making Anna's mouth water. They don't have all the bells and whistles of Oaken's products — she can't spot a single use of fondant — but their simplicity and homeliness is their main appeal.

 

She spots a golden-brown Bundt cake with powdered sugar sprinkled on top and squeals. "Fruit cake!"

 

"Fruit cake," says Kristoff from behind the counter, setting a box aside and pulling the cake out of the display.

 

"This is going to be the most beautiful fruit cake my family has ever eaten. Olaf is totally gonna cry," Anna giggles, hopping in place.

 

Kristoff carefully packs the cake in a transparent plastic box. He wraps a red and green bow around it and puts it inside a plain brown box to protect it on the way. He then presents the box to Anna without a word. 

 

"Right, so," Anna starts. "How much?"

 

"Just forget it," he waves a hand.

 

"I can't come into your mother's shop, take one of her products and leave. Come on. What's the price?"

 

If he says 'a kiss', she's going to punch him. It doesn't matter that he's cute and that she might, in fact, enjoy kissing him if the opportunity arises. She's been fooled by a cute jerk before, and she's not gonna fall for it again. If he starts with some sexist bullshit, she's going to punch him, take that cake, and get the hell out of there, she decides. (And then she'll come back on the 26th and pay his mom for the cake, and also she's letting her know her son is a sexist jerk.)

 

He takes a deep breath and scratches his chin, choosing what to say. "That one was not for sale, actually."

 

Anna unclenches her wrist. "What do you mean?"

 

"She made it for us. I was going to come by the shop to bring it to my folks," he shrugs as if that was nothing.

 

"Are you giving me _your_  family's fruit cake?" She pushes the box back to him on the counter. "No. No way. I can't accept it."

 

"Anna, look," Kristoff says, letting out a deep breath. "There are three other cakes on this display. And my parents cook for a thousand people. No one's going to miss that cake in my family, because for us it's just that — cake. For you it's not. So I really, really want you to have that fruit cake."

 

She looks at him, unsure of what to say. She can't remember the last time someone has done something nice for her like this, gratuitously, not expecting anything in return. "Thank you. Really, thank you so much, I can't even..."

 

He rolls his eyes, coming back from behind the counter and standing before her. "Let's not make a big deal out of this, ok? I'm just caught up in the Christmas spirit. Really, I'm super mean during the rest of the year."

 

"Yeah, I doubt it," she laughs, cradling the box in her arms. Then, feeling her cheeks ablaze: "Will you at least let me give you my number?"

 

He looks down and rubs the back of his neck, smiling widely and blushing. That's it, he's reached peak cuteness and she's falling in love with him, against her better judgment. "Will you at least let me call you a cab?"

 

She agrees to the cab, they exchange numbers, and he makes her promise she'll let him know when she gets home. In the car, she sends a message to Elsa with a real-time map location and the words " _got Olaf's cake and you'll never believe how_ ". She'll still be irredeemably late for Christmas, but boy, was it worth every minute.

**Author's Note:**

> Cee, I saw you liked bodyguard AUs and meet-cutes. So I made you a meet-cute guest-starring Kristoff's strong arms protecting Anna from certain death, which isn't quite a bodyguard AU. But hey, it's still cute, right?
> 
> Fun fact: in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, fruit cake is traditionally eaten on January 6, which is when the Three Kings gave their gifts to baby Jesus, according to legend. This version of the cake is called _Bolo de Reis_ (PTBR) or _Bolo Rei_ (PTEN), literally King's Cake. According to the tradition, you place a coin or a fava bean inside it before baking and whoever finds it in their piece gets good fortune for the year, and has to bring the cake on the following year's feast.
> 
> The inspiration for this story came from fruit cakes being a canon Frozen thing, and because I actually have to bake one for this year's King's Day party. (And yes, 2018 was a very lucky year for me!)


End file.
